~Chapter 01~
Thump, thump, thump.
On a night when the white crescent moon rose, painting the desert sand silver, a line of five or six prisoner transport wagons moved slowly across a golden sand basin that stretched out like a dragon’s fin.
Inside the wagons sat captives in tattered rags.
*Swish, sh-sh.*
For a while, only the soft sound of camel hooves on the sand and the rattle of the wagons filled the desert…
*Thump!*
Suddenly, a loud, heavy impact echoed.
“Ugh…”
A girl groaned, grimacing and furrowing her brows.
It seemed she had been nodding off, asleep, and bumped her head against the wagon post.
As she reached to touch the throbbing back of her head, her movement halted abruptly, caught by a strange sensation.
‘Huh? Why won’t my hand move?’
What she felt on her wrists was the cold touch of metal.
*Clink.*
When she looked down, she saw her slender, pale wrists bound tightly by something solid.
Flustered, she lifted her head and quickly scanned her surroundings.
What unfolded before her eyes was the unfamiliar, desolate landscape of a desert at night.
“…What is all this?”
As she mumbled to herself with wide eyes, a freezing shout flew down from the driver’s seat.
“Ivyn Kinzell! Be quiet!”
“What did you just…”
Just as she was about to protest, the noble young man tied up next to her leaned his head toward her and whispered low.
“You mustn’t do that here, my lady. Don’t cause a big fuss, just wait. Your brothers will surely come to rescue you soon…”
“Brothers…?”
“Silence! Prisoners, stay apart!”
*Bang! Bang!*
As a soldier roughly struck the wagon post with a club, the noble young man beside her who had been whispering hurriedly ducked his head.
She wanted to ask the man more, but the soldier from earlier shouted fiercely again, forcing her to close her mouth.
“…”
*Pat, pat.*
For a moment, the woman stared blankly, feeling the rough wind mixed with desert sand grains against her face.
She blinked her large eyes for a while, then suddenly came to her senses and slowly began retracing her situation.
‘So… I was on my way back to the office after lunch… Right, I was at a crosswalk when a dump truck seemed to get too close…’
*CRASH!*
A tremendous collision sound rang in her ears.
Then her vision went completely dark…
‘Wait, what? So I died?!’
*Pfft.*
The woman’s weak, hollow laugh scattered into the desert night sky.
‘Slaving away at work only to end my life at the age of 26…’
Is this what they mean by ‘be careful what you wish for’?
She suddenly remembered the slogan she used to jokingly shout with her colleagues in the past:
—Free the office workers unjustly imprisoned in the company and forced to labor! Free them!
Unless the cosmic system was seriously messed up, this couldn’t be happening. Her idea of ‘freedom’ had meant gaining financial independence and quitting her job in style…
‘They didn’t free me from the company, they freed me from Earth itself?’
Suddenly, she felt a *ding!* like a notification sound in her ears.
**〈system: You have been [released] from your [current life].〉**
But instead of a message alert, what rang out was the voice of the young nobleman from earlier, who had been whispering to her.
“Lady Ivyn, just wait a little longer. Just a little…”
“No, what on earth have you been telling me to wait for…”
Something was strange.
Earlier, the escort soldier, and now this nobleman, kept calling her by a specific name.
They kept calling her ‘Ivyn’…
Huh?
Wait, hold on…
Ivyn?
As the not-unfamiliar name swirled in her head, she felt like she had heard this name somewhere before.
And then…
Finally, one fact surfaced in her mind.
“Isn’t this the name of an extra from the romance novel I was reading, *《The Sand Keeps Piling Up》*?”
**Ivyn Kinzell.**
In the novel, she appears as the youngest daughter of the Kinzell Ducal family, a family of necromancers. She was a character who grew up extremely precious—the only daughter in a house full of masculine energy with a father like a giant grizzly bear and six sons as dark as night—a free-spirited young lady.
Her role in the story was to be the catalyst for the outbreak of war between the Holy Theocracy and the Kinzell Ducal family.
After Ivyn is captured as a prisoner by the Holy Theocracy and dies in prison, this incident triggers a large-scale war full of bloodshed between the two factions.
Her final words before dying in prison were as follows:
—You heretic bastards! Damn your Holy Theocracy to the frozen hells. If you’re so holy, then I’m the Flulla Goddess you worship! Gah, *ptui!*
Thus, she exited the original work, leaving behind a strong, vivid impression without losing the foul temper she was notorious for at home.
The situation assessment was complete.
In short, she had ended her brief life of resentment and transmigrated into a romance novel.
And as an extra destined to die early in the original story.
‘If I was going to transmigrate, why couldn’t I have possessed a saintess who falls into a desperate love with a handsome holy knight male lead? Why did it have to be Ivyn Kinzell…?’
She was looking with desolate eyes at the city walls gradually approaching in the distance, when suddenly, a scene from the original work surfaced in her mind.
—Ivyn, captured as a prisoner of the Holy Theocracy, resisted fiercely. True to her born nature, she did not bend or compromise. However, due to the endless torture and harsh treatment from the Theocracy, she eventually met her death in a cold stone cell…
Wait.
Could it be… the next scene is…
The ‘endless torture and harsh treatment’ scene?!
“….”
Before rational thought could react, her plea burst out first.
“P-p-please, spare me! I’m really not Ivyn Kinzell! I just possessed this body!”
*Thud, thump.*
Ivyn began denying reality by knocking her head against the wooden post.
Lies!
This is a dream!
A dream!
“I’m sorry for asking to be released from the company! I take it back! Please, give me another chance!”
Amid the sudden commotion, the sound of someone hastily pulling on reins could be heard from the front of the procession.
Dashing to the rear was a holy knight wearing a red cloak.
“Ivyn Kinzell.”
The moment Ivyn lifted her head at the sound of her name and looked, sacred music abruptly began to play in her ears.
“Ah…”
Was this the feeling described as ‘my mind went completely blank’?
A straight forehead and prominent brow bone.
Below them, a neat, straight nose bridge.
The delicate yet smooth curve running unbroken from forehead to chin.
His black hair, brushed back neatly, matched the white armor so perfectly it seemed the armor was custom-made just for him.
‘Yes, this is the male lead.’
Ivyn literally looked at the face of the holy, male lead and nodded deeply.
Every feature of the holy knight’s face powerfully proclaimed, ‘I am the male lead of a romance novel.’
The sound of a choir singing in her ears showed no sign of stopping.
It felt like wearing noise-canceling headphones… as if all surrounding noise was fading out.
“You… you’re the male lead, Theodor… right?”
As Ivyn muttered dazedly, the left eyebrow of Theodor, who was looking at her, drew a slight mountain shape as it rose.
“…He really is handsome.”
*Is she crazy?* The look in the soldier’s eyes beside Theodor as he watched her contained precisely that sentiment.
On the other hand, Theodor, who had been silently observing her, only uttered bluntly:
“It seems it would be best to put her to sleep before we reach our destination.”
The holy knight’s hand moved *swiftly*, and a sparkling, foamy powder scattered and fell through the air.
“Wow…”
Was that holy power?
While Ivyn was briefly mesmerized, watching…
A tremendous drowsiness suddenly began to overwhelm her.
“Haaam…”
A tingling, prickling sensation swept through her body like a wave, and soon her eyelids slid down under an irresistible weight.
Yawning so wide it seemed her mouth would tear, she stretched out like a cat, placed her hands under her pale cheeks, and lay down on the floor.
Then, in a drowsy voice, she began to mumble.
“Seeing him in person… after only reading the text… he’s even more handso…”
As she fell into a deep sleep, she thought to herself:
*I hope when I open my eyes next, I’m not Ivyn Kinzell, but Saintess Pavella, destined for a desperate love story with the holy knight.*
***
“…Sprawled out and sleeping as if she’s in her own home. How absurd.”
“Let’s get out while she’s quiet. Who knows what kind of fuss she’ll make when she wakes up.”
“Did you see her earlier in the wagon, banging her head and harming herself? Vicious, absolutely vicious.”
“What a waste of a face, a real waste. Her looks are beautiful enough to rival our Saintess Pavella, I dare say…”
“Hey, watch your words! Don’t utter such blasphemous statements here!”
After exchanging these words while looking at Ivyn, who was still asleep and tightly bound to a chair, the holy knights threw one last contemptuous glance at her and left the solitary cell.
How much more time passed like that?
*Snort!*
With a sniffling sound, Ivyn awoke from her sleep.
“Ah, was it a dream…”
Just as she was about to stretch…
*Clink.*
“…?!”
Her hands, her hands ‘still’ wouldn’t move.
“What?! Why am I still tied up?!”
That’s when it happened.
*Clang.*
*Creak… Thud, thud.*
The sound of the heavy iron door of the underground prison opening and someone entering.
*Squeak.*
As the thick iron door opened, bright light seeped through the gap, illuminating the cell.
